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Stephen Grey and John Goetz
November 22 1998...
the German government is drawing up plans for a European
Union spy agency as part of a proposed "harmonisation" of
Europe's intelligence services.

British intelligence is wary of becoming too intimate with
foreign bodies such as the BND, Germany's accident-prone
foreign security service.
...
"I simply see a common intelligence service as a part of the
logic of the development of Europe," said Ernst Uhrlau, the
former Hamburg police chief appointed to oversee Germany's
intelligence services under Schröder.
....
This does not go far enough for Bonn. In recent international
crises, including those in Kosovo and the Gulf, continental
European countries have often had to rely on whatever
intelligence America has chosen to provide. The Germans
worry that this puts London, which has a special intelligence-
sharing arrangement with Washington, in a privileged
position.
...
In recent months Germany has drawn up a series of
agreements to exchange secret information with France. A
joint network of listening posts in the Dordogne, French
Guiana and New Caledonia, is used by both powers to tap
into telecommunications satellites, including those carrying
American phone calls.
...
"German foreign intelligence, the BND, has been one of the
most penetrated spy services in the world," said a British
security source. "The French security services have also
been highly penetrated. And they have been routinely involved
in assassinations and undercover wars in Africa, not to
mention blowing up the [Greenpeace boat] Rainbow Warrior,
which would never be acceptable in Britain."